The Windiest and Sunniest Places on Earth

3 Tier, a company dedicated to planning for renewable resource development, has released it’s global map of wind and solar energy at a 5 kilometer resolution. You can choose to see the wind speed at various heights, which provides insight into why windmills are being built as high as possible these days: wind receives less friction from the ground at altitude…no big surprise there!

Here is an aspect of the map that I find interesting:
– Look at the west coast of Central America. Why are there major areas of calm winds interspersed with regions of howling funnels?